


the house that heaven built

by eleventh



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: (only a little), M/M, Mild Gore, hide for your soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5705698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleventh/pseuds/eleventh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this story is three parts a tragedy and in one, a confession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the house that heaven built

█ 

  


If you asked him the question: 

“Why, why didn't you run - why didn't you run away when you felt the chill settle like frost, heavy in the marrow of your bones or when you felt the cliff-face you gripped begin to grow thorns, pushing through your soft skin or when you saw the onslaught and the blood and the braid of a noose tied pretty around your neck in one of your quiet daytime premonitions or when you felt the heavens settle their cold sights on your peaceful, unmarred brow - _why didn't you escape from the tragedy you knew was coming_?”

 

Then the answer would go like this: 

 

█  
  
His hands are red. This wasn't because of the unforgiving winter chill, but rather the product of Yomo's unforgiving training sessions. Dark bruises and calluses were beginning to form on his tender flesh, and he could feel them beginning to coagulate as a bouquet of purples and yellows that blossomed from beneath the hem of his shirt the tip of his little finger; a brutal corsage of red catchfly, dahlias and purple carnations for his accumulated efforts but the pain isn't more than a dull blunted ache by now as the soft hum of Anteiku's presence fades behind him, carried away by the drone of overheard conversation. 

His cheeks are a bold, blotchy red and he's never been any good in the cold he grumbles in his mind, as he yanks his scarf tighter up around his nose, snow landing between his eyelashes and melting as he traces familiar cracks in the pavement with his eyes, an apparent look of skull-bending concentration taking up his face as he eyeballs the familiar route. Hide had told him that only bookworms of his calibre were able to hold their attention to boring things like cracks in the pavement with such seriousness and intensity and he's not wrong as he remembers every curve and zigzag that leads the way to the three rooms and two windows of his childhood days. 

He notices that in his periphery the bouquets don't live for long and quickly wither and lose their colour until they collapse inwards suddenly, blotted out to his usual pallor. A couple walks past him, a girl with dazzling long legs and dark silky hair with her arm looped around a man of a similar demeanour and it's almost comically suspicious, the way he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, his nervousness making knots in his throat even though they don't spare him a glance but the sudden anxious buzz fluttering in his gut is quelled a little for the remainder of his trip home. The dusk settles like soot on the horizon and he figures there's too many people outside for him to feel safe any more.

The ghoul in his skin is mocking him, he can feel Kamishiro Rize lounging languidly on his grave in contempt of him and digging her finger-claws through the dirt to make a chill run through him as he walks ahead, attempting to draw as little attention to himself as possible. His hands are jittering in his pockets as he thinks of how the rest of his bruises must also be withering with supernatural speed, curling and dying on his skin like he is aflame. His body is a field of flowers.

Although it's darker in the evenings with the winter falling in, there are more people about and the pounding of hearts, the pumping of their blood so loud in his ears is no longer deafening but expected radio static and he can't remember thinking without it. He remembers that he is not human anymore and he lets his eyes close and his body guide him. His body is a field of flowers. 

There are red spider lilies growing behind his eyes, twining between the lobes of his brain their thirsty stems digging into soft tissue. They overwhelm the backdrop of his skull - meek laburnums and droves of white hyacinth cut through like blood in the water. Acacia blossoms clung fast to his bones, old but strongly twined - climbing up and looping lazily through his ribs and quietly, settling deep in the corners of his sternum are the small festering buds of cypress and marigolds growing surely, slowly at the base of his spine. The corners of his eyes are overgrown with blue gentians, out pouring from under his waterline and spilling across his cheek mixed with the leaves of absent roses. The swathes of lotus flowers float slow atop the surface of his stomach acid, lulling against the build up of white rose petals, dried and stuck steadfast to the lining of his stomach and every artery like scaling white paint. Day-lilies he'd slowly forgotten quietly drooping, neglected and browning in the back of his throat and he's learnt how to breathe around them as he inhales, exhales - timing each in and out breath - and the familiarity is a welcome comfort and he feels human once more, the ghoulishness cleansed from his body by the simple act of breathing; although, he's sure that ghouls and humans breathe alike.

The sleet is getting heavier in the corner of his eyes and he can feel the cold sludge against the rubber of his shoe soles and he finds himself suddenly worrying about the traffic because Hide will no doubt be cycling through it, undaunted by the slush of cold. He faintly thinks of making him something to eat, despite his obvious aversion to food and he remembers the smells of spices and cinnamon that remind him of Hide's childhood home at christmas time. He passes through the restaurant district and he can't smell the sweetness of blood nor the now acerbic bite of human food over the remembered scent Hide's favourite burger, Hide's light shampoo and the smell of Hide's skin close to his. 

█  
  
His hands are red. He blinks away the imagined sight and it disappears behind his eyelids, leaving him numb and his heart stuttering strangely. The cold permeated his skin with a chill he couldn't shake off despite all his hours working at Anteiku. The bruises from his training sessions heal faster and he no longer notices them and silently, they fade as he looks at the bevy of bright christmas lights and advertisements that make his eyes water a little. He hopes that Hide wore something warm today and not just his wind-breaker because the roads are packed full yet again and he worries about how late he'll be as neither the traffic or snow is letting up. It's to be expected he supposes, it is Christmas Eve.

Someone else is expressing the same thought, more vocal than his silent internal monologue and missing the warm concept of Hide that makes him mellow altogether and he hears them - their voices clear above the low-level cacophony of the crowd. He swallows as the conversing strangers walk past him, his eyes forced forward and down so not make eye contact with the body attached to the clear voice and the subsequent glint of a silver briefcase in a firm palm attached to aforementioned body. His voice rings through his head and it's blitheness is crude and harsh. It makes his tongue curl and he keeps his pace even, breathing in and out - not panicking and making sure to not trip in the mounting sleet, keeping his head down, nape exposed to the slip of a chill that blows both past and right through him.

He rounds the corner of the street, the dazzle of christmas decorations tapering out into the usual dim ambience of backstreet Tokyo. He's walking not shakily, but not firmly either and slower than usual - he sees his flat in the distance, a quiet bastion a little out of the lamp-posts glow that he's eager to reach but he doesn't run or make any indication of haste. He climbs each step up to his apartment slowly and with measured motions, one by one - and it's because of the sleet, the sleet of course, this damned sleet that's clutching at tips of his toes and ends of his fingers and in the fraying edges of his brain and not because of the sudden nausea that made his insides crawl, twisting and turning - he can still hear the duo of men talk and joke casually ways away of the street he grew up on, the same street that his mother would walk him down towards school, the street that he and hide would play football on, the street that lead home and every step closer to _his_ home is a weighted one because he knows that she won't be going _home_ again.

A foreign, heaviness digs deep, deep in his stomach - a promise wedged hard in the folds of his intestines as he feels the CCG investigators footsteps crunch down the street past his home with the fear of death not in them, easy and untroubled by the blood on their hands and it makes something curl within him in ways he cannot understand.

He can't rely on past experiences to explain the emotion coursing through veins unopened and he wishes his mother were here to explain them to him in the eloquent way only she could. Rize is still laughing at him, he feels, but there's a subtle edge of approval she knows he can taste at the back of his tongue and it's sweet like honey. She cants her body forwards leering at him, her arms smooth and blush pink slither underneath his arms and her chest presses tender and warm against his back. Rize whispers in his ears but he can't hear her over the tuberoses that have sprouted there.

He burns and he can feel her body cage him, warm and pliant or so he thinks as he feels himself careen, his insides constricting and distorting like he was being drawn and quartered but only beneath the skin. The force holding his skin taut and uniform stretching and plucked thin like gut for strings, whining under the tenor of his anger in the crushing pressure of hate and just fury and the growing bubbling in the small of his back. 

The beating is loud and it grows heavier, heavier, he wants to slam the investigators head into the ground to the same rhythm and match the beat as it got faster and faster and faster, fingers sunken deep in skull and brain tissue pressed far under his fingernails, a crescendo of coltsfoot and orange lilies are bursting violently into bloom in the cracks of the pavement he used to walk down with mama and his own bony knees jutting out beneath him sprayed with a sheen of blood prying open the dove's stomach like a pin shoved through bone, muscle and wing because he thinks of her kind smile, and she died kneeling, _kneeling_ her kagune splayed like beautiful butterfly wings and ripped clean from her body and he can't breathe because he's _so scared his lungs are filled with cold liquid fear and_

\--and Hide’s text notification goes off - a high pitched ping flung in the air slicing through the noise loud in his head and it’s all suddenly far out of his mind, spinning away from him like a satellite knocked out of orbit and he’s fixated on the strings of nonsense emojis and the clipped text speech and the sentiment and affection he can feel even through the phone. He smiles beside himself and fumbles to unlock the door with one hand and reply to Hide's concerned text with the other.

The doves steps are far away now and their faces are lost to the atmosphere, burnt and indistinguishable. 

█  
  
His hands are red. It’s a mixture of his own blood and rain-water, both liquids sluicing down his forehead and under the valley of his eyelid as he attempts to wipe it away from the one visible eye his mask affords him, whilst keeping his opposition - _Amon_ , Amon firmly in his line of sight. 

His mind is so far removed from simply on edge, he's already miles over the peak and not slowing down and with no conscious will he is grinding his teeth against each other with a ferocity he can normally not muster behind the warm leather of the mask that sticks to his face. It's glued in place with drying blood and water-dilute sweat and he feels as if it's the last line of defence between the ghoul, him and Amon. 

His eyes are burning in their sockets, as if fizzing wetly like how he remembers popping candy on his tongue and he longs to uncouple the stifling leather mask from his face but he keeps it controlled, sucking harshly through his clenched teeth. The ghoul in his body is trapped behind the flesh, the leather and the flimsy zip that separates his mouth and the mask and he doesn’t plan to let it through even if it breaks all his teeth trying to claw out of his throat. 

The untested bones and stringy muscles which are the components of one Kaneki Ken are screaming in exertion and dull fear and he feels the aching want to succumb to Kamishiro Rize, wants her to pull him in to her bosom and keep him safe and warm there where he doesn't have to think of the consequences and just watch the flowers bloom. She watches him, sat in the very back of his skull and lazes deliberately like a secret voyeur as he struggles to keep his kagune contained and look Amon Koutaro in the face.

The rain helps him _not_ look Amon Koutaro in the face, however little, as the liquid melds into his eyes and makes them spill tears that run hot down his face. The water dissipates the smell and the hunger can’t pinpoint every beat of his heart and every twitch of muscle through the interference and he is grateful for the small relief of being able to see him as a human being rather than the beat and flow and cuts of meat - he tries to outline of the boundary between his two brains and not to think back to a fan of blonde hair muddied with dirt and blood, laying static, undisturbed by him screaming his name and the feeling of powerlessness that had forced itself down his throat until he gagged - and in his hesitation, Amon Koutaro slams his quinque against his abdomen. 

He does so with such devastating force he feels his ribs push through his lungs and the sinews of his spine curl inwards and he feels like a roach that has been stepped on, soft underside bruised and ready to splurt out at the seams as he struggles to roll off his back onto his shaking knees, scared but determined.

His teeth are clamped shut, and he can feel the buds of edelweisses and night shade poke through the gaps between them, but his eyes are open wide and he faces the other man as Amon lands another blow that makes him feel as if his body will cave in from the sheer force. 

All he can think of is how the pupils of Amon's eyes are so blown they appear black in the night and in contrast Hide's are the golden afterglow of a sun that he can't reach, a warmth he can't touch with these dirty hands but he still wants to feel in every corner of himself even if it means being selfish - his hands are covered in blood but clenched tight between his fingers is undyed resolve. His kagune bloom behind him, curls of fire in flesh form and once more, he goes flying through the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on holiday in notepad w/o internet it really doesnt go anywhere but i love hanakotoba  
> i was aiming for something thats really frilly but fun to write 
> 
> dahlia - instability  
> carnations (purple) - capricious, indecisive  
> catchfly (red) - i fall victim, youthful love  
> spider lily (red) - never to meet again, lost memory, abandonment  
> laburnum - forsaken, pensive beauty  
> hyacinth (white) - unobtrusive loveliness, i'll pray for you  
> acacia blossom - concealed love, friendship  
> marigold - cruelty, affection, an omen  
> cypress & marigold - despair (when together)  
> blue gentians - intrinsic worth, i look to heaven  
> lotus flower - far from my beloved, purity, chastity  
> dried rose petals (white) - death is preferable to loss of virtue  
> day-lilies - forgetting worries, devotion to ones mother  
> lily (white) - sweetness, you have made my life complete  
> coltsfoot - justice shall be done you  
> tuberose - dangerous pleasure, voluptuousness, sweet voice  
> lily (orange) - hatred, revenge, pride  
> edelweiss - courage and power  
> night shade - bitter truth


End file.
